“Pittsburgh residents will soon receive their 2012 property value from Allegheny County’s Office of Property Assessment.  Allegheny County is the governing body responsible for determining the values of every property and structure located within the City. Our goal is to educate Pittsburgh residents about the appeal process to ensure that they understand how to appeal an unfair or inaccurate assessment”-City of Pittsburgh website, Appeal Assistance for Allegheny County’s Property Assessments

Pittsburgh’s Finance Department is offering help for taxpayers who want to appeal their new 2012 property values.  As we have written before, the City of Pittsburgh and the Borough of Mt. Oliver were selected to go first into the assessment pool and notices are in the mail as of this writing.  The City will hold four information sessions between now and January 12 in various neighborhoods.  Formal appeals of property values are made to the County’s Board of Property Appeals and Review.  The board’s section of the County’s website has a guide for how to be prepared for the appeals hearing, similar to what the City’s Finance Department will be doing at its meetings. 

It is not clear whether the City feels that some new assessments are either unfair, inaccurate, or both.  Perhaps the City’s leaders feel it is simply unfair that their taxpayers are getting notices first before the rest of the County.  In any case a lot of the confusion and shock surrounding the reassessment could be avoided or minimized by having a very detailed reassessment notice that errs on the side of too much information. (A request to view a sample 2012 reassessment notice was denied by the Office of Property Assessments). 

Certainly, by the time the remainder of new assessment notices go out to the rest of the County, the Office of Property Assessments should have developed an assessment notice form with information sufficient to allow the property owner to know whether the tax bill for the County, municipality and school district is likely to rise, fall or stay the same under a zero windfall provision for each taxing body.  

The notice forms will almost certainly show the new assessed value for the property and the current assessed value so the taxpayer can see the dollar and percentage change.  Let’s use the example of a single family home in Bloomfield assessed at $55,000 currently.  Assume the 2012 value is placed at $65,000; the notice should show the home increased $10,000 (18%) in assessed value since the last reassessment in 2002.

The taxpayer might be shocked, confused, or relieved upon seeing this set of numbers.  But to make it clear what is likely to happen to the owner’s City and School tax bills, it is necessary to show the owner the change in the total assessed value of all properties in the City and in the School District. With that information, the taxpayer could then gauge how their 18 percent increase compares to, say, a 33 percent increase for the City and a 30 percent increase for the School District.  With those percentage increases changes, the City and School District could lower millage rates significantly to hold revenue collection level with last year, producing a sizable lowering of the owner’s tax bills.

Unfortunately, possible changes in the Bloomfield property owner’s County tax bill cannot be evaluated until the remainder of the County’s reassessments are completed and certified.

If the property assessment office is not willing to provide the information on the notices, the City should at least post the aggregate changes of assessed value for the City and School District on its website. It should also hold a news conference and inform the news media who can then report the information in written and televised form.  At the news conference the City should show property owners how to use the information to estimate the change in their tax liability.

By the time the remainder of the County’s new assessment notices are ready, the Office of Property Assessments should have prepared a form to provide total assessment data for each property owner’s school district and municipality as well as the County’s data to accompany the assessment information for the owner’s specific property.

In addition to the assessment information, the notice should contain an instruction sheet to show how to gauge whether the property’s tax bills (school, municipal and County) are likely to rise, fall or stay about the same if a zero windfall policy is adopted by all taxing bodies.   Finally, the County should prepare a list of all school districts and municipalities with their old and new total assessments and the percentage changes and post on a convenient web page and release the lists to the media. School districts and municipalities need to be proactive in this matter as well with town hall meetings and seminars to help their taxpayers understand what the new assessments will mean.

The new assessments will create a lot of confusion and consternation that can be avoided if individual taxpayers are properly and carefully informed about the aggregate changes for the county and by their school district and municipality. There is time to get this done. It is incumbent on the County to do everything in its power to eliminate as much confusion and angst over the new assessments as it can.  Failure to carry out even the simplest of these recommended steps can only be interpreted as a willful neglect of its duty to its citizens. 

The Judge overseeing the assessment process might not be able to force the County to implement these recommendations, but could strongly suggest they do so. The endless and strident opposition to the Court decision and the slowdown in getting the reassessment done doesn’t provide much optimism the County will act unless pushed.